In lighting systems, often operating devices are used to drive lighting means such as gaseous-discharge lamps, halogen bulbs, light-emitting diodes (LED), with which operation of lighting means is monitored, started and/or dimmed.
Using sensors for, for example, detecting object movements, ambient brightness or absence/presence of a person and providing a respective control signal to the operating device, lighting means can automatically be switched on/off at presence/absence of a person or dimmed to automatically adapt to ambient brightness.
Sensors for operating lighting means must be supplied with a feed-in. The feed-in is usually realized from the electricity grid with an additional power supply unit for transforming alternating current in direct current (AC/DC, or an additional output of the operating device or directly from a bus system.
Such feed-in needs additional installation space in the lighting device and/or a circuit for galvanic isolation. A simple re-fitting of a sensor is only possible, when a separate output for the sensor or a compatible bus system/interface is present at the operating device.
Conventional dimming of LEDs is achieved by controlling the operating device (e.g. LED-converter), i.e., the sensor/dimmer must be connected to the operating device. In many cases the operating device is positioned at an inaccessible place, for example, on the bottom of a swimming pool while the lighting means is on the top of the swimming pool, so that it is difficult or impossible to connect and retrofit a sensor. Further, for detecting ambient brightness or detecting presence of a person, the sensor/detector should be placed near the lighting means and, when the lighting means is quite far away from the operating device, long cables or additional communication channels are necessary.
It is an object of the present invention to provide apparatuses and a system which reduce the above problems. In particular, an object of the present invention is to provide a control device, a lighting device and a lighting system, with which a simple and inexpensive retrofitting of lighting control is possible.
This object is achieved by the control device, the lighting device and the lighting system described herein.